I was multitasking in the afternoon, balancing I/O table and watching Ginebra vs Alaska game through my phone.

Neens and I had dinner at Salang, a Korean resto which played #Jadine songs, super lels. We ate beef bibimbap and kimchi pajeon. The serving size is totally worth it so it’s 👌👌👌 for me. We also ate cotton candy ice cream, check my IGS. Hehe.

I got to work at 8:59 am, a milestone for me since I always arrive at 10 or 10:30.

We had our weekly team meeting today, just discussing about updates and plans for the latter half til next year. Then, by the time I got down at my desk, Ate Joy called me and said, “Hello Nina, psm ka ni kuya.” I replied, “Ano po yung psm?” She answered, “Please see me, haha.” I learned a new acronym! HAHAHA

In relation to that ^ Joseph gave me an “on the side” work which is making a revlit about GVCs. Finally, I get to veer away from tables and start writing again. Also, it was thoughtful of him to ask me about how I’m doing with my readings because it’s not really part of my job. It was the time he shared me what to read in order to understand and help me appreciate the trade sector, like if I want to pursue it as specialization.

Since I got to work early, I get to leave early, 5:30pm to be specific but I arrived home at 8:30pm. Thanks to the long lines for shuttle in Park Square, but I have Ann and my mom with me. However, my mom left us since she is “malakas” to the kuyas of UV, she doesn’t need to fall in line and as soon as a shuttle came, she can ride right away. It’s altright though, ’cause I think other passengers will complain if we, 3, got to ride the shuttle bypassing a lot of people.

For some reason/s I have yet to discover, I thought of starting a daily journal through this wordpress account. Maybe because I noticed that I have such an app on my phone but I’m rarely using it, or maybe I just want to practice writing coherent thoughts on a daily basis, and so on. I have yet to think a solid reason lol.

Anyhoo, this was a so so day for me at work because I already finished the required tasks. There were 2 seminars I’m interested to listen to today, the IMF presentation on the World Economic Outlook and the seminar on Global and Domestic Value Chains in Asia (brown bag). I just passed by the IMF seminar because there were a lot of people and just thought of studying the readings my boss gave me. It was 10:30am and the brown bag one is at 12:30 noon so I thought of working for a few hours first before “goofing (intellectually) from work” through seminars.

The brown bag was quite interesting. It was fun listening to a talk with all concepts familiar to you. “Yeah, I did that, ohh I know how to measure that etc.” It was 100% relevant to what I’m doing. The data I’ve been producing were used in the analysis through decompositions and my most favorite part is the inclusion of the job growth effects.

Then it hit me. I think this seminar was sort of a wake-up call to appreciate and be passionate about work since I found the trade sector as something just required of me to do because it’s my job. Doing something macro makes me feel that I’m not contributing something to society. Producing input-output tables is not exactly socially relevant. But with that seminar, having job growth included made me think, “may silbi naman tong ginagawa ko.”

I want to learn and love the trade sector the same way I learned and loved Political Science (my undergrad degree). I didn’t like it at first but became passionate with it especially because of the quantitative pol. analysis subject where I learned to use R programming and the political economy subject which made me take up masters in economics. I can say that trade and I is on the getting-to-know-each-other phase and I hope that the time we invest on each other is/will be worthwhile.

Also, I also want to remember that on this day, Aika and I went again for merienda in the caf for the first time in a long time. To be honest, I didn’t know why we stopped eating and going there lol. She ordered egg salad sandwich and mine was chicken salad sandwich.

Another thing to remember and ponder on: I stumbled upon Aika as I was going home, she came from yoga and I began to think of joining her again. I always think of joining her but I am lazy and I want to jog/run than stay in a stationary place. Lels. But I guess I just need to start doing it so I can make it a habit. I badly need exercise, for your info. Hahaha.

I’m writing this to tell you that I hope you answer me soon. I badly need some response because I’m quite an anxious bean. I know that the last thing I said might make you sad or irritated, so I respect if you shrugged it off. But I really am concern, worried, whatever. Hope to hear from you.

Since Wimbledon, Jill has always been blabbing about tennis. At first, I was just “yeah, go on, I’m not a tennis fan but you’re my friend so I would listen.” Every time I accompany her to smoke at the parking lot of our office, she goes on about her tennis feelings, Nadal’s famous butt, her lesbian feelings for Petra, something about Djokovic, Andy Murray, Sharapova, Serena, etc. even tennis courts!

Then this week, Jill, Sol and I are the ones left since my other office friends have field work (shout out to Gem, Aika and Krissy, haha lels). Anyway, today Jill shared something about tennis that I’m surely be attracted to, and that’s basketball. It’s about Roger Federer and Michael Jordan, teaming up for a Nike shoe. According to http://www.espn.go.com, “The Federer-Jordan friendship apparently was a match made in Nike heaven. The two longtime endorsers got together recently to help design a new Federer shoe inspired by a classic 1988 Air Jordan model.“

So, I was kind of imagining how tennis is really the same as basketball. I’ve been a fan of basketball since I was ten. I really love the sport but tennis, I never played even once, duhh I said never (schizo moment pls). So, I’m having this interest of actually learning and training tennis.

Playing tennis would mean that Jill can have a future doubles partner and I can play with Michelle (Lojo) in BF (which is just near my house). It can also be an alternative sport since I have a hard time looking for swimming pool to practice swimming or maintain swimming as my workout. With tennis racquet, Jill is willing to give one of Kuya Val’s hand-me-down racquets since he knows that Jill plays tennis, not me. I’m just a crazy gullible person who begins to be interested in tennis just because of MJ and basketball. I know right. I am crazy. But I’m happy. HAHAHA. So my problem is just tennis shoes, attire and balls, and the greatest of them all is money.